The bookseller

Friday 2 June 2006 19.51 EDT
First published on Friday 2 June 2006 19.51 EDT

· It's bung time again. The old row about how much publishers pay booksellers to promote their wares has reopened, with the Sunday Times declaring that the widespread practice of "cooperative marketing spend" is ripping off readers. The story was most likely fed by a few disgruntled publishers, firing a warning shot across the bows of WHS and Waterstone's so they don't increase the sums charged for this year's Christmas campaigns. But is it really true that bookshop browsers don't know that a "Read of the Week" offer is partly a marketing device? No number of front-of-store displays will convince people to buy a complete turkey. Yet it is true that certain retail chains did lose sight of the importance of creating an original book selection that builds a relationship with their customers. This creates a gap for independent booksellers to exploit, as well as other trusted sources of recommendations, such as Richard & Judy and new website LoveReading.co.uk.

· The death knell for an independent Ottakar's was finally sounded on Wednesday. After nine months of bids, government probes and protests, Waterstone's has won through with a £62.8m offer for the smaller bookseller. That's £33m less than its original bid - so the publishers and authors who made such a fuss have saved HMV a packet, much to the chagrin of Ottakar's shareholders. With both chains' sales in free fall, it will take a herculean effort to get them to start growing again. But don't rule out a final dramatic twist to the saga.

· There's nothing new about publishers becoming authors, but this week sees a particularly rich crop. Penguin's renowned history editor Simon Winder has The Man Who Saved Britain (Picador), a hilarious blend of cultural history, biography and memoir that traces how Britain's postwar self-image was shaped by James Bond and his creator Ian Fleming. Winder, whose authors include Ian Kershaw, Orlando Figes and Niall Ferguson, cheerfully admits that his own efforts are unauthoritative by contrast. "Penguin publishes the absolute cutting edge in modern history, and I thought it would be fun to write the opposite - the blunted bottom," he says. But this self-deprecation should not be taken at face value: Winder dreamt up Penguin's 2m-selling Great Ideas series, as well as the striking new Penguin Epics. Meanwhile, his colleague Rowland White has a rollicking account of the opening Falklands war raid, Vulcan 607 (Bantam). There's also Bloomsbury editor Michael Fishwick with his second novel, Sacrifices (Cape), while former Virago publisher Carmen Callil has won a place on the Samuel Johnson Prize shortlist for Bad Faith (Cape).

· Orbit, the feisty science fiction and fantasy imprint of Little, Brown, is crossing the Atlantic. Its publishing director Tim Holman will relocate to New York, where he'll oversee Orbit USA as well as a new Australian operation. The move makes sense in a market without boundaries: presumably Orbit will push for world rights to its biggest authors, such as Iain Banks, Robert Jordan and Terry Brooks.

· The new, all-English Daggers crime writing awards were unveiled this week. You may remember that the main prize is now sponsored by private bank Duncan Lawrie to the tune of £20,000, and excludes translated books. On the shortlist are Simon Beckett for The Chemistry of Death (Bantam), Ann Cleeves for Raven Black (Macmillan), Thomas H Cook for Red Leaves (Quercus), Frances Fyfield for Safer than Houses (Little, Brown), Bill James for Wolves of Memory (Constable), and Laura Wilson for A Thousand Lies (Orion). Translated authors have been moved to the £5,000 Duncan Lawrie International Dagger. The shortlist for that prize, also worth £1,000 to the translator, is Andrea Camilleri for Excursion to Tindari (Picador, trans Stephen Sartarelli), Yasmina Khadra for Autumn of the Phantoms (Toby Crime, trans Aubrey Botsford), Dominique Manotti for Dead Horsemeat (Eurocrime, trans Amanda Hopkinson and Ros Schwartz), Håkan Nesser for Borkemann's Point (Macmillan, trans Laurie Thompson), Rafael Reig for Blood on the Saddle (Serpent's Tail, trans Paul Hammond), and Fred Vargas for The Three Evangelists (Harvill, trans Sîan Reynolds).